No Child Left Behind: Hands-On Where It Should Be Hands-Off and Vice Versa

As Bush prods Congress to reauthorize No Child Left Behind he has rightfully taken a tremendous amount of heat for his seemingly well-intentioned but poorly-executed education law. As NCLB has given the federal government a larger role in education than it has ever had before, stakeholders including state and local policymakers, teachers and education advocates have called for Congress to "get out of the classroom." But most seem to agree that while the federal government should not be setting a national curriculum or mandating teaching methods, it does have a key role to play in setting standards for student achievement. So it's interesting that while federal policymakers seem all too happy to take a hands-on role in schools where they shouldn't, they've declined to do so where they should.

Learning standards are best set at the federal level, but NCLB allows states to set their own. The definition of "proficient" should not be any different in Mississippi than in Michigan. A uniform standard of proficiency should be set by the federal government so that students in different states are not held to different expectations. We should not tolerate low-performing schools in a state with low standards simply because they meet the local criteria for proficiency, while low-performing schools in a state with high standards stick out like sore thumbs and receive extra attention from stakeholders until they improve.

By tying funding to test scores, NCLB has given states a perverse incentive to lower their standards so that politicians and educators can dishonestly pat themselves on the back when tests show their students meet local standards for proficiency. (Lowering standards is often coupled with making tests easier to the point that they are no longer a valid measure of student achievement.) Deflating standards deflates student achievement because school districts align their instructional programs with their respective state standards. One needs look no further than Mississippi where in 2005, 89 percent of fourth graders scored "proficient" on the state's reading test, while just 18 percent scored at "proficient" on the NAEP reading test, considered by some a "national report card."

Some scholars and researchers such have charged that NAEP should not be considered the "gold standard" by which to compare state assessment tests because it has a different "measurement function" than state tests. I will leave it to the experts to determine the merits of using NAEP as a national standard. But regardless of whether they agree on using NAEP or some other measurement vehicle, policymakers must develop uniform, rigorous national standards so school districts know that the same is expected of them as is of every other district in the country.

While we should have the same expectations for every student and school district, we must understand that not every student and school district start at the same place and some will perform better than others. Setting standards at the national level will highlight these disparities rather than hide them as watered-down state standards currently do. Furthermore, national standards will allow us to address these inequalities by enabling policymakers and educators to study the practices of high-performing districts so that they might be implemented in lower-performing ones.

As Diane Ravitch wrote in last week's New York Times , "In our federal system, each level of government should do what it does best." The federal government should set standards and collect information about how students are measuring up to these standards. But it should do so for the purpose of assessing student achievement in different schools in order to help states and local districts in their role of improving student performance, not to punish failing schools. That way local officials can do what they do best - design reforms tailored to the needs of particular schools and students - not inflate test scores to win votes and federal funding.

Comments

[blindjester]

We see that firefighters can help with fires, but not stop them altogether. Police can have an impact on order and reduce crimes somewhat, but can't be expected to eliminate them. Other agencies can't completely solve the problems they were created to deal with. Teachers try to teach the kids, but not every kid is willing to be saved.

Public schools take everybody. When you see our overloaded prisons, ask what those men and women were like in school when they were 14 or 15 or 16. When you see a drug addict, ask yourself if that person would have passed federally mandated tests. Think about the gang bangers, and try to imagine them doing their homework.

And when one million students ditch on Monday, is that because teachers are too strict, or too lenient? Because I've heard it both ways.

Hold schools accountable for providing programs, and creating reasonable interventions, and hiring qualified personnel. But expecting teachers to overcome the effects of poverty, negligence, crime, drug abuse, physical abuse, apathy or alienation in 10 years, or 100, is simply magical thinking.

[Aunt Shecky]

I don't think that poverty interferes with
education, per se. If a child has a will to learn, there's a way. Even if his particular school is sub-standard, there are ways to counteract that. Parents can set good examples for their children and they can and should step up and work for a better school for their children. There is much to be said about educationing oneself -- there are numerous examples of successful autodacts: Lincoln, of course; the current winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature was a high school dropout! Public libraries are free; and the beauty of reading is that you can do it just about anywhere, even in a tenement.
Writing off poor kids as being "uneducable"
is a myth! It's a kind of prejudice. I am not against improving the public school system, but
it's wrong to write off a class of children just because they're poor. Both sides of the education debate have to stop making excuses.

[StephenSmoliar]

Reducing the education problem to the goal of meeting achievement standards is like the drunk looking for his keys under a lamp-post when he knows he dropped them on the other side of the street. The drunk look where the light is better, and our policy-makers argue over the one thing they THINK they know how to discuss. The scope of education has always been so far beyond merely meeting achievement standards that the only thing the debate reveals is a chilling understanding of how little we know (and are willing to do) about the problem.

[schwinnrider]

I read somewhere that someplace some kid got left behind. They are spending billions developing a brand new ecudation plan- "One child left behind."

[darker]

Chronic "testing" is as stupid as being so busy chronic test your car that it's your TRIP TO NOWHERE. Testing DOES NOT MOVE EDUCATION FORWARD.
It doesn't develop THINKING SKILLS.
Memorizing and then forgetting is NOT EDUCATION.

[realitytrumpsbull]

It is time for the Advent Of RoboTeach. Yes,
your humble computer, PC or Mac or home-built
Frankenputer, I care not, but it's time to
re-launch K-12 in digital format, so that
even if your kid can somehow NOT gain access
to an overcrowded classroom, they can still
get to the informational content ostensibly
being provided therein. There's more kids than
there are schools, worldwide, and someone should
write to Uncle Bill about finding out what
it'd cost to put a grade's worth of portable,
translatable, grade-based, digital workbook-style ejumikashun out there for the broader
public to get access to. Some families travel a
lot, a nationally standardized educational
material set would be a boon for them.

Can they do something like that, or will we
see more horsecrap masquerading as 'education'?

[WASanford]

Yes they can do something like that! I've taken college math courses on line for full credit. I'm currently using the biology courseware that's available on line from the Massachussets Institute of Technology, and the University of California is putting all of its lectures on line.
How much money would we save by putting textbooks on line in a format that could be downloaded to and e-reader and just use that...BILLIONS!! By not buying tens of thousands of textbooks every year, California would save more than the federal aid it recieves and could tell the Bushies to stick NCLB where the sun don't shine.
NCLB was a scheme to drive students into "private" schools by destroying our public school system through gradual degradation.
The people who are saying they can't hire us because we aren't well educated enough are the very ones who want to destroy public education!

[Mormondude]

So if you live in Brownsville or El Paso and 85% of your kids are Latino and learned Spanish in their homes, you should just flunk the entire school every year?

The entire premise of NCLB was that the districts that were often in the most need were the ones being punished and neglected by the old policy. These schools and kids were simply being written off, or 'left behind'.

NCLB changed the paradigm by starting every district off on equal footing by having subjective standards, and then measuring improvement. You glossed over that entirely.

That said, these kids will eventually be expected to take the SAT or ACT to apply for college where the subjectivity ends. And although subjective standards will no longer be there to level the playing field, the real question is whether these kids will have been better prepared to compete at that time by having been in a school that focuses on improvement and measuring performance.

That is clearly debatable, but I think that not enough time has passed to see one way or another.

[rwe2late]

(1) The actual premise of No Child Left Behind is that the schools alone can "fix" societal problems without having to address those problems: e.g. urban decay, crime, drug addiction, local inequities in educational funding, immigration, loss of employment opportunities, health care, child care, etc.

(2) The subjective­/objective test dichotomy you speak of is misleading. There will be debate about measuring the education needed to be a good citizen, understand US history and government, or to appreciate art and music. But there should be little debate about measuring basic math and reading skills.

(3) Your El Paso example is only another example of mistaken generalizations from insuffient information. If the 80% Hispanics all lived in the US from birth, that would indicate one kind of problem. If most of the 80% were from other cities, states, or countries ...that would indicate a different kind of problem.

[Snakeback]

I thought the Repugs called it "No Child's Behind Left."

[SamThornton]

Well, Zach, there you go again, trying to make sense.

Unfortunately, as in so many other areas, the Bush agenda for public education isn't about improving anything. It's about destroying what he and his fellow lunatics hate. As long as they keep smearing the lipstick on the pig and people keep saying, "Oh, what a pretty pig," nothing will change.

[RobNelb]

Great post as always Zach. You discuss the federal government's role in setting standards a lot, but what about funding? For my mom who's a teacher, the problem isn't knowing what to teach but rather having the resources necessary to do her job.

[fetchezlavache]

As a long-time educator, I am very, very glad that I am not teaching at the elementary or high school levels and having to stifle any creative, imaginative classroom techniques in the name of endless testing. I have always loved teaching, but it gets harder each year to persuade my students to go into that profession. "Teaching to the test" is a soulless, constricting method. We are in danger of losing any posssibility of awakening the love of knowledge that my own teachers awakened in me.

[Advocate123]

I find it ironic that when a Republican attempts a Big Government program, liberals finally realize that limited government works better.

[mamacita]

The key word here is "attempt." This "attempt" obviously has some flaws that need addressed. Stubbornly clinging to the original legislation because you cannot accept constructive criticism is narrow-minded and foolish. Education for our children is in everyone's best interest, and an open-minded approach to developing the best program to reach that goal takes advantage of all available resources without recognizing political affiliation or economic status.

[Aunt Shecky]

This was an excellent comment, mamcita, especially your concluding sentence.

[BamaRainbow]

Well, one could look at it in this manner: That when a Republican attempts a Big Government program, they don't have the experience necessary to pull it off since they've spent all their time crying out for "limited government".
You might find it less ironic if you consider that the ULTIMATE goal of this Republican "attempt" at "Big Government" was to destroy public education. What happens to schools that "fail"? Their students (and those students' parents) get to receive "Big Government" money (that "Big Government" couldn't waste on the failing schools) to go to PRIVATE schools which, not so coincidentally, are EXEMPT from NCLB. Private schools, incidentally, can pick and choose the students they want. What happens to a student from a "failed school" if the private school determines the student doesn't "fit" the school? Where do the unwanted "failed" public school students wind up after NCLB?